The present invention relates to a self-running vacuum cleaner for cleaning by running by itself and a control method thereof, in particular, to the self-running vacuum cleaner, being suitable for moving upon an instruction of a user.
Cleaning is one of the burdensome housework for a housekeeper. In particular, for a person handicapped due to a sickness and/or an accident, and/or for an aged who's muscles are lowered or weaken in functions, it is also very burdensome work to operate the vacuum cleaner. While, with a self-running vacuum cleaner, being used in offices and/or public facilities, it must be given an instruction in advance, by inputting a map, for example, therefore it is difficult to give the instruction for cleaning up places, accurately, where the surrounding thereof is always changing day by day, such as, in a home, for example.
Then, according to an electric vacuum cleaner described in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 5-253128 (1993), for example, tension is detected when a user tries to draw around the hose thereof, so as to drive or move the main body of vacuum cleaner responding to the force applied onto the hose, thereby lightening a load of the user. Also, in a self-running electric vacuum cleaner, being described in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 63-23492 (1988), for example, providing a transmitter held by the user and a receiver portion for detecting an order of receiving, the vacuum cleaner is moved into a direction in which the user swings the transmitter. With this, the user can make the vacuum cleaner move into the direction at her/his desire.
Cleaning of wide spaces, such as, the offices and the public facilities, etc., puts a large load upon a worker(s), the self-running vacuum cleaner comes to be applied to, which runs by itself from place to place which is determined in advance upon the basis of a map of the workplace. Such the self-running vacuum cleaner mounts a sensor thereon, for detecting obstructions or the like, thereby cleaning up a region or area which is preset while avoiding obstructions when the cleaner detects the obstruction not shown or indicated on the map.
However, according to each of the conventional arts mentioned above, the user must give an instruction of driving direction for the vacuum cleaner, by drawing up the hose or swinging the transmitter portion. However, with such the method, when moving the vacuum cleaner from a storage place out to a place to be cleaned, passing through a narrow stairways, the user must operate it while paying attention, so that the vacuum cleaner will not hits on walls and furniture, in particular, when she/he tries to clean up a room where the furniture stands. For doing such the operation well and freely, while moving around and arranging things neatly in an indoor, practice is needed for the user. For this reason, the vacuum cleaner, according to the conventional arts, brings about a problem that, for an aged person and/or a user who is not well practiced, it is difficult to move or guide the vacuum cleaner to the places at her/his wish, easily.